


i'll spin you valentine evenings

by kyrilu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dancing, Dreams, M/M, Post-War, Tomarry Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9091828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: Harry dances with a masked stranger in a dream.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slytherinlock](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=slytherinlock).



> Hugely inspired by the ballroom scene in Labyrinth. I hope this fic works for you, Gabby--I mashed up themes from Once Upon a Dream with ObsidianPen’s Mine and Hauntingly.

A white veil flutters.

Harry is dreaming, and he sees it in his peripheral vision. It is nothing like the veil that took Sirius. This veil is like a translucent cobweb curtain, swaying at the pull of an invisible wind.

This white curtain is partly draped over his back like a cape. It brushes the nape of his neck, making his skin tingle, and Harry turns to part the veil from over his shoulder. He pushes it with the palm of his hand, and the dream changes.

...The Yule Ball.

He is dressed for it, even. Harry looks down and he realises that he’s clothed in a white wizarding dress robe, streaked with gold swirls and lines that keep shifting, moving.

“This looks like something Dumbledore would have worn,” he says, with a surprised laugh. Dreams are complicated things--with the war over, he’s had his share of nightmares, after all. At least this dream doesn’t seem to be like one of his usual nightmares. Instead it’s something surreal. Something weird.

Because this Yule Ball of his dream is the same, but different.

The rising columns of ice encircling the room is familiar. So, too, are the icicles hanging from the ceiling and the frosted trees decorating the room.

The difference is the people attending the ball. They aren’t just students and staff, but people of all ages, apparent strangers. And like Harry, they wear robes of moving patterns--he sees a dark haired woman with twinkling fabric fireflies flitting across her yellow robes; he sees a man with a mask with a pattern of flames lighting and dying, lighting and dying, on this vestige on his face.

For they are all wearing masks. Harry suddenly feels self-conscious and exposed--he doesn’t have one. Because this is a dream, he’s somehow able to see clearly without his glasses; his face is doubly empty.

You would think, he muses, that the dream would provide him with a mask, too, considering it gave him robes.

“You forgot this,” a voice says.

Startled, Harry turns and finds himself face to face with a masked man. This man is wearing sharp dark black robes, without any shifting patterns on the folds at all. It’s only a plain, jet black. His mask, set against the top half of his face, is solid green.

The man holds out a mask for Harry. The mask matches Harry’s robes--shifting gold lines.

“Er, thanks,” Harry says, blinking. He takes the mask, slips it in place.

“Golden,” the man says, abruptly, his gaze sweeping over Harry’s robes and mask. “Like the snitches you catch. It suits you well, Harry.”

Harry stumbles over another thank you. He wonders who this stranger is and how he knows him. Even with a half mask on, there’s something...alluring, or maybe familiar about him?

But then, Harry reminds himself, this is a dream.

“Dance with me,” the man says.

“You’re a bloke,” Harry bursts out, and then he flushes. “Why--”

“Why not?” the man asks. He sounds amused instead of upset. “The music is lovely and Harry--remember, Harry--this is only a dream, after all.”

The music _is_ nice. The air is filled with strains of orchestral music, warm and steady. Harry doesn’t consider himself a dancer, but there is something about this that makes his feet impatient. He wants to move, just like he loves soaring in the sky while on a broom.

“Alright,” Harry says, surprising himself. “I’ll dance, but I haven’t danced properly in years. The last time I danced at a ball like this was when I was fourteen.”

He sticks out his hand, and the man smiles and takes it, walking him toward the center of the room.

It seems almost brighter in the ballroom, shimmering icicles and ice columns enclosing around them. All around them is a blur of colour, masked strangers dancing and dancing.

They start slow. Joined hands and swaying, and then the man’s hand slides down to hold Harry’s waist.

The man’s eyes are dark brown. Harry tries to place those eyes, this face, this man, half-shrouded in a mask and an air of mystery. He’s seen him before; he _knows_ him.

“Who are you?” he asks.

The man doesn’t answer him directly. He says, “At the orphanage, they always had a priest come by to talk to us. To teach us things.”

They continue dancing; they twirl. Dark black robes and white lined with gold robes fluttering and twisting. Harry can feel a tight sensation squeezing his chest.

“The Holy Trinity is made of three parts,” the man continues. “The god, the man, the ghost. I would say it’s rather applicable to our situation, don’t you think? The god is dead. The man is here in my arms. And I--”

The man dips his head close, his mouth touching Harry’s ear as he whispers, “-- _I am the ghost.”_

Harry recoils. He says, “Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

His hands, still clutching Riddle’s, convulse. But he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t break the dance.

“I’m the one who was inside of you,” Riddle says. “The one who has always been with you since you were a year old.”

“You’re dead,” Harry says. He thinks of the train station, that ugly baby left behind. He looks at Riddle with burning eyes and says, “I died so you could die.”

And Riddle--Riddle laughs. This laugh is a warm, dark chuckle that makes Harry shiver. Riddle brings a hand upward to tap Harry’s mask where his lightning bolt scar lies beneath. “Some things are never gone. Don’t fret, my would-be murderer, my precious soul.”

This is a dream. This is a dream--this is a dream--this is a dream. Harry repeats this mantra to himself, frozen, and Riddle continues to pull him along into the dance, not letting up, even though Harry feels like a puppet, a doll, being dragged across the ballroom floor.

“I’ve been in your dreams ever since you were an infant,” Riddle breathes. “You never remember me when you wake. But I was there. I chased away the monsters of your nightmares. I talked to you when you were scared sleeping in your cupboard in the dark. I spoke to you in our shared tongue--hissing, rasping, comforting. I was with you during your years in Hogwarts, and it was nothing--nothing--like the flashes that you received from my counterpart. And Harry--my mortal of my own divine trinity--I dance with you.”

Like the ocean waves, Riddle draws Harry away from him in time with the music. Then he draws Harry toward him again.

Harry is numb, unbearably numb, because he knows Riddle is right. Harry thinks he remembers strong feelings of familiarity and utter closeness and intimacy. He feels entirely safe in Riddle’s grasp.

Tom. His Tom.

“When will I see you again?” he says, quietly, and Tom touches his chin and smiles.

“In your dreams, of course,” Tom says. “I almost wish I could keep you sleeping forever. In many ways, this is like a fairy tale, isn’t it, Harry?”

That soft chuckle again.

“It is my dearest wish,” Tom murmurs, “that I could keep you in a glass coffin, under the earth of Godric’s Hollow, beside your parents’ graves. Suspended in sleep forever. You would lie in a bed of lilies that would never die, the coffin overflowing with flowers, and you’d dream of me and only me…”

“You can’t do that,” Harry says, sudden, his voice hoarse. “The war--the war is over. I’m free of you--of Voldemort.”

“You are free of the god, not the ghost. Remember what I told you, Harry. Some things are never truly gone.”

Tom presses a gentle kiss against Harry’s forehead, and Harry wakes.


End file.
